Tether
by HotPinkCoffee
Summary: Rachel and Tobias reflect on their relationship and what they need from each other. Two parts, complete.
1. Things We Fight For

**Tether**

**I: The Things We Fight For**

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"Won't it be dull when we rid ourselves of all these demons haunting us to keep us company?" –Barenaked Ladies, _War on Drugs_

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It's not healthy.

Then again, not much about this whole thing is. In the grand scheme of things, a barely functional relationship is the least of our worries. We've already given up our childhoods, we've already witnessed more trauma than anyone should ever have to live through, we've already lied so much to everyone else that our families don't know who we are. Sometimes I don't think we know who we are. I know I don't always.

So comparatively, a relationship where two people legitimately love each other isn't that bad. And yes, people. Because I don't care what he says, I refuse to believe he's no longer a person. I don't care if it's what he thinks.

I'm waiting for him at my desk again. He doesn't show up every evening, but he makes the effort. I understand that the way he lives now, sometimes dinner doesn't happen and he has to conserve all his energy. It's temporary, I tell myself. At this point I've given up on trying to argue him into overstaying the time limit, at least until the end of the war.

But after the war? He's going to be human again, fully human. I know that once the war is over, once he doesn't have the excuse of being out of the fight, he'll do it for me, if I ask sincerely. And I want him to, so I will. I love him, and he loves me, and long-term, a woman just can't spend the rest of her life with a bird. Especially when their life-spans are so short.

And God, do I love him. Not that we ever say that out loud to each other, but I've recently come to understand that about myself. I don't sort of love him; I deeply love him, because I was never the type of person to do things half-assed. Fight hard, love hard.

It makes the fighting less scary to love someone. Love is a very human emotion, and what I feel during battle isn't something most humans would admit to. It's terrifying. It's too terrifying to even talk about, with anyone, even with Tobias, because we don't really talk to each other about things like that. We leave the deep moral conversations to Jake and Cassie.

Tobias and I just like knowing we're not alone. That he's not alone in his situation, that I'm not alone as the only un-reluctant warrior. That, too, is a pretty human thing.

And it's another very terrifying thing, to know that you're the only other person in a world that could quickly become one. That we're both one person away from being devastatingly isolated. It's a lot of responsibility. It's the pressure to say the right things, live through the battles, and fight back any doubts you ever have about it. It's hard work, knowing that every harsh word you say weighs ten times what anyone else's critique would. That having all their love to yourself is not a gift; it's a frightening burden.

I know Tobias knows that if he stopped loving me, I might just go with that part of me that loves the bloodshed. Escape heartbreak by surrendering to the awful dark instincts in me. Or maybe stop using love as an excuse not to. I'm not really sure which way it would go.

And what if I stopped loving him? I don't even think on that long enough to form a scenario, because I know I won't – can't. Everyone he's ever had has turned their back on him. I'll never be the next person in that line. I couldn't do that to him, even if I didn't love him anymore, so I never even have to consider it as a hypothetical.

So yeah. Not exactly healthy.

But I've never really been a traditional person, and this isn't the healthiest lifestyle anyway, so maybe healthy isn't the highest priority for me. Maybe survival is. To not be killed and for once, to not kill.


	2. Things We Run From

**II: The Things We Run From**

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"On behalf of humanity, I will fight for your sanity. How profound such profanity can seem." –Barenaked Ladies, _War on Drugs_

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There is nothing about my life that is normal. Then again, sometimes I don't think there ever was. Most kids grow up with at least one loving parent, have friends at school, have dreams about the future.

I never had any of those things. I was shuttled between relatives who never liked me. My best friend was the locker door in school. I didn't have any dreams, really. No ambitions, no drive to prove them all wrong and be their boss. You'd think I'd at least have dreams about fighting back, about watching those bullies die in house fires or get hit by trucks, but even though I wanted so badly to see them suffer, I never had the energy to conjure up scenarios of their demise. I was thirteen years-old and was already burned out, if I'd had any burn to start with.

Now I'm a bird-alien-boy who spends his time hunting mice and flying over the city.

And I know that Rachel and I, we're not normal. But it's the most normal thing I have. In a weird way, it's probably the most normal thing she has too. Everyone's supposed to have teenage romances where they vow their love to each other.

Not that we ever really tell each other we love each other. We just know. It's one of those things we have to know, because if we didn't we'd both be a lot worse off than we already are.

I don't have to tell her that I'm terrified all the time of what I'm becoming, what I am. I don't have to tell her that it scares me how normal killing my food has become. It's become pleasant, even. Satisfying. And the whole time, I'm thinking that the human part of me should be screaming, should be repulsed like I used to be, but that part of me's okay with it.

Maybe that's just the human part of me accepting, adapting, being desensitized, or maybe it's the human part of me fading away or learning to shut up. I like to think it's the former. I sure hope it is.

Is it possible to lose yourself entirely? I worry sometimes that if I lost track of who I was, even for an instant, I'd disappear into the hawk and never find myself again.

I wonder if Rachel feels that way about the way she sees battle. I wonder if she thinks that if that violent side of her took over out of battle, even for an instant, she'd never find her way back. She'd cross permanently from the reassuring, brave woman I love into the berserker. Would I love her if she was the berserker, forever?

I don't know. But I know, as much as it scares me, it scares her more. Sometimes she's asleep when I get there, and my fluttering wakes her up, and she sits bolt upright and stares at me with the most terrified eyes before she recognizes me. I know it's not dreams that scare her, because it's like looking into a mirror. What my human eyes would look like if I could remember to express.

She's scared of being lost. I am too. We're both so scared.

Maybe that's why we love each other.


End file.
